Amsterdam Hen Weekend

Amsterdam ‘Hen-Weekend’.

Things you never expect to come back and bite you always do.

This is the nature of piss poor planning.

You always think you’ve got things taped but the truth is there’s always something you’ve either forgot, or that you didn’t think mattered, or slipped through the net, or that you just didn’t know about in the first place. Some snippet of infinitesimal information, some shard of knowledge that could have saved your life had you known about it, but now turned around and cost you it instead.

It’s the nature of this kind of thing.

You have to bet that these clangers are out there, and are just waiting for their opportunity to give you the one.

I cite the following as an apposite example.

My cousin is in her forties and a ‘Civil Servant’ and, if truth be known, a good deal too old for a weekend ‘City Hopper’ flight to Amsterdam for a ‘Hen Weekend’ with three other forty something’s, and eighteen twenty something’s.

She had been invited to this dubious soiree by one of the orange’d and waxed tartlets that shared the workspace cubicle in which she lived between the hours of eight a.m. and four thirty p.m, Monday to Friday. Flexi time permutating, (if that’s a word).

She had told me that she had been dealing, (on the phone), with an ‘irate lazy good for nothing’, (in-house term for customer/claimant), immediately before she became embroiled in the discussion mooting the possibility of a ‘Hen Weekend’. This, (apparently), had been the reason for her getting caught off guard, (and accepting the unwelcome invitation), as the ‘irate lazy good for nothing’ had demanded an increase in his benefits because his favoured ‘White Lightning Fusion Cider’ had suffered a price increase of thirty two pence on a two litre bottle. This would engulf my cousin in a complete day of market research and random phone calls to off-licenses, in order to process, evaluate, compute, means test and then reject the ‘irate lazy good for nothing’s’ claim: or, (possibly), source a cheaper supplier for him, (or her, the sex of the ‘irate lazy good for nothing’, was never actually made clear).

It’s a great relief to me however, to see that the staff in these places do not arbitrarily waste the money which they suck from our pay-packets in the form of Income Tax and National Insurance; other than for the purposes paying their own wages with it I mean.

But, life is what it is, and when you work in a communal office on the eight millionth floor of the ‘Department of Health and Social Security’ offices in some nameless sprawling city, it is inevitable that, (at some time or another), you will be caught on the hop and be unable to come up with a plausible excuse not to participate in such an excursion, particularly when the unsolicited invite falls on you like a drunken husband, immediately after a telephonic encounter with some incoherent scumbag whose main source of sustenance is fermented apple juice.

Does it count towards ones five a day?

Mmm, not sure.

In any event, my cousin signed up to the long weekend, which became longer as each intervening week bumbled along. By the time the departure date arrived the ‘Hen Weekend’ was scheduled to run from a Wednesday evening, (the flight landing in Schiphol Airport at seven thirty p.m.), until the following Tuesday, flying back at nine in the morning. I asked myself at which point does a ‘long weekend’ become a ‘short week’; but there is apparently no definitive scale.

The long weekend or short week, whichever you prefer, dissolved, over a period of not many days into punctuations of late night oblivion perforated by shiny day time queues outside Anne Franks house, (twice, with no eventual entry); an accompanied tour of the Heineken Brewery and a lengthy canal boat voyage to take in the sights of the Jewish Quarter, and row upon row of houses that looked all the same except for the changing colours of the doors.

On the Sunday night, my cousin, having succumbed to the delights of the odd ‘puffle’ café, daytime alcohol games of ‘buzz’ and something called ‘slut’, a drink involving lager, vodka and blue WKD with Tia Maria, had decided, along with the other thirty something’s, to absent themselves from the planned late night ‘clubbing’, and had decided to have a quiet meal at a secluded canal side restaurant. The evening had been a pleasant change from the ubiquitous springy antlers, bright tee shirts with rude names emblazoned front and back, silk sashes with un-original slogans, and plastic ‘L’ plates, which adorned the twenty something’s; the one with the, (by now), sick stained bridal veil, singling her out as the lucky bride-to-be.

Best of luck to the groom!

My cousin and her two other thirty something’s had left their hotel about seven p.m., and walked for half an hour or so, until they found a suitable looking café-

bar; a place called the ‘Canal-side’, and named in English, clearly aimed at the tourists, not the locals. It was clean, friendly and quite smart, with comfortable tables, quaint photographs of old Amsterdam, mostly depicting ships and people in clogs, none, of the German occupation during the war, and all designed to give no offence. The menu was after all printed in English, French, German and, as an afterthought, Dutch.

My cousin and her friends ordered a chicken dish with some sauce, and roasted sweet potatoes, followed by a crème brulee for dessert. They washed it all down over a few very pleasant hours with two bottles of Chardonnay and finished off with coffees and calvados.

The twenty something's went to a ‘bangin’, (as they called it), nightclub with ‘bumpin’, (again their description), music and ‘bucket’s’, (them again), of cocktails. They got drunk again; sick again, tired again, lost again, got separated from one another, and would doubtless spend the next morning’s breakfast exaggerating the enjoyment and the amount of booze consumed the previous night.

Oh to be twenty something again.

I don’t think so.

In fact the following morning’s breakfast was a sombre affair with the vast majority of the twenty something’s nursing self inflicted wounds and struggling through coffee and bowls of ‘Special K’. The thirty something’s were comparatively fine, and decided to have another crack at 267 Prinsengracht and see if they could get into Anne Frank’s house. My cousin mused that if the Nazi’s had seen the same kind of queues that are now ubiquitously outside there, then they would have probably not bothered with the place. ‘They don’t like queuing; The Krauts’, she had remarked dryly, (and quietly).

The twenty something’s spent the remainder of the trip doing what they had done for the earlier part of the trip and then missing decent breakfasts.

My cousin had told me that the hotel, (apparently named after a famous Dutch philosopher, Baruch de Spinoza), had T.V. sets in each room which were chained to the walls, and a sign in the lift which proclaimed that anyone who brought drugs into the building may be asked to leave. But my cousin assured me that the breakfasts were very satisfactory and the location was ideal for the red light district, the canal trips, and a myriad of bars, nightclubs and cannabis dens.

After their return home, and when the dust had settled and the exaggerated tales had subsided, this being about a week later; there was a matter of fact telephone call to my cousins office for one of the twenty something’s. It was a message for her to call to her doctor’s surgery to collect a prescription for a rash she had developed on her lower lip. The twenty something arranged an appointment at the surgery for the following morning at eight. a.m.

The facial rash had started about two days after the ‘Hen Party’ had returned from Holland. It had failed to clear up with liberal applications of Germolene, and so the twenty something had reluctantly called to her doctor, who in turn had instructed his practice nurse to take a blood sample and a mouth swab from the twenty something, and had sent it off to the local hospital for testing.

The following day the twenty something had failed to turn up at her office for work by lunchtime, and my cousin had attempted to contact her via her mobile phone. There had been no answer, so my cousin had left a message. That evening, sometime after midnight, (a good way after midnight), a very distraught twenty something appeared at the front door of my cousin’s house, along with her mother.

She had apparently been arrested.

My cousin invited them in and gave them a cup of herbal tea; which, (according to my cousin), is the immediate solution to any problem or unexpected occurrence. The twenty something and her mother relayed her sad tale. It was a three cup of tea tale.

That morning, as planned, the twenty something had turned up at her doctor’s surgery with a copy of her favourite ‘celeb’ magazine under her arm, this in anticipation of her usual thirty minute wait in the reception area, (a timescale which had preceded every other visit she had made to the surgery). She had gone to the fat lady with the bad teeth at the main desk, and said that she had been called back for some blood test results and a prescription; she gave her name, and confirmed her address. The fat lady with bad teeth picked up a green phone, pressed a button, and conversed with whoever breathed into the other end in soft tones. She then turned to the twenty something, smiled like some demented hideous orang-utan, and said:

“Consulting room eight please luvvy”. She pointed off to her left, almost randomly.

Sitting on a chair in the corridor outside consulting room eight, and a little way passed its door, was a smart looking woman, in her early thirties with blond hair held up by a clip, her clothes were dark, her shoes plain and low heeled. She nursed a thin pale blue cardboard folder on her lap.

The twenty something knocked the door, and an Asian voice from within shouted to her to ‘come right in’.

Inside, as well as the expected doctor, she found two tall men, one in a grey suit, one in a sports jacket and black trousers, both wore white shirts and horrible ties, they introduced themselves as police officers, and waved their warrant cards under the twenty something’s nose. The smart looking woman from the corridor had now risen, (almost silently from her chair), and stood behind her in the doorway.

Three minutes later she was in the back seat of a police car, handcuffed, heading towards a police station on the other side of the city, and her immaculately applied make-up was gouging ugly streaks down her cheeks as she cried uncontrollably. The smart looking woman sat next to her, but said nothing.

The dishevelled twenty something spent the next fifteen hours in a police cell, with intermittent visits to a cold interview room where one table, three plastic chairs, a tape recorder, and the two police officers from the doctors surgery always awaited her, always with a batch of new questions. Occasionally the smart looking woman would come in and stand in the corner, but she never spoke. They all seemed particularly interested in the recent trip to Amsterdam, anyone she had contact with during the trip, and the content of her mobile phone.

The twenty something had volunteered an unsolicited admission to smoking some ‘weed’ as she had termed it, suspecting, (incorrectly), that this was the reason for her current incarceration. The policeman in the sports jacket gave her a cup of disgusting tea from a machine in the police station corridor, and assured her it was a more serious matter. She had been sick over his shiny black shoes.

During her fifth visit to the interview room, they asked her specifically about a saved number on her mobile; an entry by the name of Jan Van Der Paisen.

The twenty something explained, between sobs and sniffles, that she had met the man during the excursion to the ‘bumpin’ nighclub. She said that he had bought her some drinks, and that they had chatted, and that he seemed ‘nice enough’.

The police asked her if there had been any sexual intercourse between the two, and the twenty something had confirmed, (only semi coherently through the tears and the grizzles), that ‘Jan’ as she referred to him had ‘snogged’ her on the dance floor, and that they had a bit of a ‘groping’ session on one of the bench seats that lined the walls of the dance area. She also confirmed that he had asked her to go back to his apartment, but she had refused, saying that she was out for the night with her friends, and she would have to go back to the hotel with them. She explained that she was in Amsterdam for another two days or so, and said that maybe they could tie up for a drink or a meal during that time.

They had exchanged mobile phone numbers.

The grey suit had asked if she had any further contact with Jan after the encounter at the nightclub. She had said that he had phoned her once or twice, but she had not answered because she and her friends had discovered the delights of ‘ganja cakes’ and coffee, and had found a bar just around the corner from their hotel which did vats of cocktails and pitchers of Amstel Lager for not many euros. The sports jacket and the smart looking woman had both laughed. But not for long.

The twenty something had told them that she had a boyfriend at home, so in any event had no intention of embarking on a relationship with Jan.

At the same time as the twenty something’s sixth visit to the interview room was in full swing, (some thirteen hours after her arrest at the doctor’s surgery); Dutch police were raiding the apartment of Jan Van Der Paisen, in the Harlem district of Amsterdam. In there, in various stages of decomposition, they discovered the bodies of twelve young women, all twenty something’s. The bodies had been laid out neatly, but naked in the bedrooms of the apartment, all three of them, four bodies to each bed. All the light fittings, curtain rails, door tops etcetera, had been festooned with hundreds of those little green cardboard Christmas trees that people hang on their cars rear view mirrors to make the inside of their vehicle smell like a pine forest. In the apartment large bottles of perfume were left in each of the rooms, all with their tops off. The remains of Mr.Van Der Paisen’s breakfast and evening meal dishes had been left in the kitchen sink. He had cooked Spaghetti Bolognese for himself after he had returned home from work, and the coffee percolator was still like warm, there was a half read book on the coffee table in the living room, and his razor was still on the side of the wash hand basin in the bathroom.

His pyjamas were laid out ready on an ottoman at the foot of one of the beds. They were silk, and in the colours of Ajax Amsterdam.

The police found Jan Van Der Paisen’s Volks Wagen Golf parked two streets away outside a small general store; he had been inside buying a bottle of Australian Shiraz, a packet of Grissini, and some self raising flour when they arrested him. He had put up no struggle, and had insisted on paying the shopkeeper for his purchases before leaving with the officers. He waited for, and checked his change.

As he was escorted out, he gave one of the officers his carrier bag of purchases, and another his car keys. The third officer handcuffed him, and walked him across the road, and into the back of the police car.

When his pockets were emptied at the police station, they contained, a wallet with thirty euros in it, (all in ten euro notes), a credit card, a small photograph of himself, and twelve small locks of hair, each bound up with a piece of selotape. He also had a ‘cheap seats’ ticket for the forthcoming home fixture between Ajax, and Feyjenoord, and in his trouser pocket he had three euros and seventy five cents in change, and a key for a mortice lock.

It transpires that there is some disease or another, with an unpronounceable name that living people can catch from being in contact with dead people. Hence the twenty something’s mouth rash. It was this that flagged up the doctor’s interest when her blood test results came back. He then contacted the police, and the rest just slotted into place, like so many wooden pegs.

She was however a very lucky twenty something.